Brief essay on modern science, among other things

[Lord Mhoram]

Chemistry 1 H : Extra Credit
Reflection on Nobel Lecture by Kary B. Mullis, Dec. 1993

Nobel prize-winner Kary B. Mullis begins his lecture by using past prize-winners Max Delbruck and Samuel Beckett as his examples of the conundrum of modern science: Science seems somehow irrelevant and intellectually unattainable to the common man, whereas literature and art have a certain universality and applicability. To me, this seems to make sense, but only on the basis of an individual scientist versus an individual writer. In my opinion, the scientist, as Delbruck alludes to, is simply a stepping stone towards a larger pursuit of an idea. In other words, only in very rare cases does a single scientist have a massive impact on the way we think. It takes a long, arduous process to achieve that. The scientist’s ideas and his theories and his experiments are built upon, modified, and changed by dozens of other scientists over a period of many years. In that process, the names of many scientists are lost. Often, only the name of the first scientist and the last scientist in the process are remembered. Sometimes none of them are remembered at all. But for a writer, only a single work by a single writer need be produced, and he or she will be remembered for that seminal work. Beckett is a prime example of this. (Before reading this speech, I had heard of Samuel Beckett, but never had I heard the name Kary Mullis.) However, Charles Darwin or Sir Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein might be exceptions to this rule. But with Einstein, for example, what does E=mc^2 mean to the common man beyond three variables an exponent? And much of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is grossly misunderstood by the masses. While of course science is applicable to our everyday lives (it explains and defines everything in our every day lives), the way it is applicable is somehow lost in the language and expertise necessary to understand it. One of the great ironies of science is that it exists to educate the world on how things work, yet when it challenges something that we have come to accept so readily, we suddenly reject the science behind it, or simply allow ourselves to remain willfully ignorant of it. Darwinism and evolution are prime examples of this fallacy.

Mullis goes on to explain in relative detail, to the layperson at least, how he invented the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, the process by which one creates multiple copies of DNA. He specifically says that the details of his discovery are “esoteric and not crucial.” This reaffirms that despite how important PCR is to biology and science and general and however monumental a discovery it was, those details, that explanation whose meaning is lost in the language, is immaterial to science laypeople.

The fact that, according to him, Mullis essentially theorized PCR, one of the most important biological discoveries of the last century, in a car ride to the mountains with his girlfriend negates the idea that many of us hold in our minds that science is done entirely in what Mullis described as an “ivory tower.” In other words, scientists are entirely aloof and out of touch with the real world. What they do is basically meaningless. This is obviously largely untrue. To me, some guy driving away for a weekend with his girlfriend and suddenly coming up with an idea doesn’t seem very aloof or ivory tower-esque to me. With this story, Mullis shows the practicality of scientific theoretical thinking and shows how science can be “brought back down to earth.” The drama that Mullis relays regarding his first wife and then his girlfriend show how someone’s personal life and relationships affect work in the field of science.

This speech brings forth questions about science and how it relates to society. As science progresses and makes leaps and bounds in the fields of discovery and technology, the question is raised: Does science adapt to society, or does society adapt to science? One could argue that as society progresses, its needs demand scientific progression and expansion. Doesn’t the advancement of society depend on the advancement of science? For a nation such as the United States to grow into an international political power like it is today, it required economic growth. Its economic growth required technology. The development of that technology required science. But on the other hand, for science to be explored, a freedom of thought and expression such as that the United States offers is required. The work of many scientists is a result of the time period into which they were born. Advancements in submarine power were made by Germans during World War I, because the Empire of Germany was fighting a naval war. Sir Isaac Newton, one of the great minds in human history, lived in Renaissance England. This time period was ideal for scientific thought and development.

As inventions like the Internet, and new medical breakthroughs that allow a person with a terminal illness to survive longer than they ever could before, come to the forefront, society must adapt. New laws, written on paper, and unwritten moral rules, must be drawn up.

Science causes ethics to be rethought, perceptions of our world to be reconsidered, and our place in the cosmos in which we find ourselves to be reassessed.